Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Make ‘World’s Most Admired’ List for First Time — And Trump Moves UP Two Spots

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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each made their first appearance on YouGov’s “World’s Most Admired” list, while former President Donald Trump moved up two spots since last year’s list, which was released weeks before the Capitol insurrection.

YouGov released its annual Most Admired survey this week, which polls more than 42,000 people in 38 countries to determine who the most admired men and women in the world are.

The top of the list remained unchanged from last year, with former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama taking the top spot as most admired man and most admired woman.

Farther down the list, though, there were some significant changes.

President Biden made his debut on the list — just barely. He came in at the 20th spot. VP Harris fared better in her debut, finishing as the 11th most admired woman in the world.

Trump improved since last year, when he was the 15th most admired man in the world, to number 13 on 2021’s list despite having incited a violent riot in the U.S. Capitol just weeks after the last list was released. Trump debuted on the list in 2016 as the 18th most admired man.

YouGov

YouGov explains their methodology:

During the spring this year YouGov gathered open-ended nominations from panellists across 38 countries and territories, asking them simply: “Thinking about people alive in the world today, which [man or woman] do you most admire?” These nominations were then used to compile a list of the 20 men and 20 women who received the most nominations and were nominated in at least four countries. An additional 5-10 popular local figures were added to the lists for individual countries.

In fieldwork conducted from over the summer and autumn we used these lists to poll each of the 38 areas asking two questions: “who do you truly admire?”, where respondents could make multiple selections, and “who do you MOST admire?”, where they could only pick one. These two numbers were combined into a percentage share of admiration…

The pollster added that “By asking respondents two questions, we can understand both the breadth (i.e. global reach) and the intensity of a person’s support.”

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